US 101: From El Camino Real to the Twilight of Empire

US 101 is an iconic highway stretching from Los Angeles, California to Olympia, Washington. Its origins reach back to Native American trails and El Camino Real, an eighteenth century royal road linking Spanish missions. With the integration of the region into the US and the arrival of the automobile age, the volume of traffic and the scale of road development expanded. US 101 was designated in 1925, incorporating not just the El Camino Real corridor but also coastal routes north to Washington. Through the twentieth century, the highway traversed an increasingly powerful region as economic, political, and cultural influence shifted to the American West. More recently, however, the cultural meaning of the highway and its antecedents have changed. In particular, the imperialism that inspired the El Camino Real has been condemned; and the place of the car and the highway in the region’s culture has never been more contested.